1. Tackling: Really there was nothing of note that the Saints did right in this department. The defensive line, linebackers, and secondary consistently tackled poorly. It became a real problem for the defense as the game went on as they would just bounce off defenders, or miss completely.

To tackle is to physically interfere with the forward progress of a player in possession of the ball, such that his forward progress ceases and is not resumed, or such that he is caused to touch some part of his body to the ground other than his feet or hands, or such that he is forced to go out of bounds. In any such case, the ball becomes dead, the down is over, and play ceases until the beginning of the next play. ó
Wikipedia

Certainly sounds easy but itís something the Saints defense could not get done. This week defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is likely to get his defense back to basics with tackling drill after tackling drill.

2. Defensive line play: Re-building the defensive line was an area of focus for the Saints this off-season. They drafted defensive end Cameron Jordan in the first round, signed run stuffing defensive tackles Shaun Rogers and Aubrayo Franklin in free agency, and brought in a bevy of other talented players to help with the pass rush.

None of that seemed to help against Houston as the Texans were able to average over six yards a carry enroute to posting over 200 total rushing yards. Gap integrity was non-existent, and they could not hold up at the point of attack.

In simple terms a 4-3 defensive lineman, whether defensive end or tackle, must rush the passer but also recognize the run adequatetly enough to fill in the gaps and take away the running backs primary and secondary reads.

Those two are HUGE.... Simply because they have plagued us in the past...

homerj07

08-22-2011 07:30 AM

tackling sucked - HUGE DONKEY BALLS

homerj07

08-22-2011 07:31 AM

Sweet - can't wait!!

Marlboro Man

08-22-2011 07:33 AM

Hey, don't sweat it. It's just preseason. We play them again in 4 weeks. We didn't want to show them anything. They played their starters longer than we did. Did I get them all in there? Hope I didn't miss any.

Maverick2299

08-22-2011 08:05 AM

I wish they would start someone other then Alex Brown on the LE for the first team....he just does not impress me.

Crusader

08-22-2011 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maverick2299
(Post 322364)

I wish they would start someone other then Alex Brown on the LE for the first team....he just does not impress me.

I'm with you on that. I had hoped Jordan would have beaten him out by now.

SaintsBro

08-22-2011 08:52 AM

The tackling thing annoys the heck out of me, but here's the thing: it's nothing new, folks.

Gregg Williams' D is all "dawg" and attitude, colorful cussing and hype about his blitzes and "remember me" shots...and not a lot of tackling going on. It's kinda been that way ever since he got here. I could probably name 3 games per year that were either lost, or made "ugly" by a lack of simple basic tackling on defense. How many big ugly touchdown runs did people break on the Saints in '09 -- I remember it was almost like there was one really idiotic-looking, Football Follies-type long TD run per game, where somebody broke one almost every week. So people talk about the Seahawks and the Marshawn Lynch run, but it didn't come from out of nowhere: look at the Ravens game from last year, the tackling was almost just as bad. Our offense had the 49ers on the ropes last year at Candlestick, and the defense couldn't tackle and let them back in the game, so we barely squeaked one out that should have been a blowout....The Redskins and Dolphins games in '09, were plagued by bad tackling as well...

I could go on and on. This is really nothing new. It is what it is, and it's pretty ugly.

strato

08-22-2011 08:56 AM

I like the aggression ..but the lack of fundamentals are baffling...this could be our Achilles heel this year.....

Wrap em up!

st thomas

08-22-2011 09:01 AM

its all about getting back to fundamentals of football, all who played in this great sport knows what went wrong on sat. nite. the zone blocking scemes by houston was to make us think run left or right. and what we did was over run every gap that they are suppose to cover,and the back side ends or olbs were to seal off the back side or the cut back run or the bootleg pass that shaubb went off on, which is where they ate our A holes up in yardage. its easy to see. rogers was a huge flop on holding his own so is franklin. they got manhandled the good thing is it can be fixed. just get back to basics.